That’s not as clear cut as you are trying to represent it here. Allow me to give you an example: imagine for a second that LFR would provide better gear than mythic raiding and the other difficulties. There would still be a small crowd of players who would do mythic raiding, but the absolutely vast majority would do LFR and then not raid anymore above that. Would you say it’s as clear cut as to claim that the vast majority of players appreciate only easy content? Probably not, and the truth of the matter is that every person strikes a personal balance between being efficient and having flavour. Imagine it more as a slider, where you decide how much efficiency at the expense of flavour you want are willing to go, but then the amount by which something is more efficient also skews that balance.
I don’t think there is any disagreement with that, but it’s ultimately the point: people will chose the more efficient option when it’s not in the same ballpark of the alternatives and it will be very likely that it will mean specific players will be “pushed” to play specific Covenants.
This is unless Blizzard manages to balance them in the same ballpark, which is something many are skeptical they will ever manage due to the radically different nature of the abilities they provide, or unless people actually change the way they think and embrace the “you don’t have to be optimal” line of thought, which I find also very unlikely.
At this moment there is definitely a best for M+ for my class 
It is very possible another one is better in PvP or raiding. Not saying others can not be fun to play with in M+, or are not viable.
I am in agreement with you on this. I know I will choose the most efficient one for sure for the type of content I am interested in. But I was questioning your judgement in that reply with the flying (I am all for flying myself too, make no mistake - I think after the first 2-3 months, the whole “mystery” of the zones is completely figured out and keeping us grounded is pointless). And yes, exactly as you say, unless the differences are marginal between covenants (which I don’t believe they will be), then many players including myself will choose the more efficient one.
The difference between covenants will certainly not be marginal simply because they will have abilities that do different things, on purpose. Abilities that do different things can only be balanced in ensembles (as in, you get 5-6 abilities from covenant A and I get 5-6 abilities from covenant B and although the abilities are all different, since I am selecting them with some thought in mind, you will not be able to get much stronger than me). Since we don’t get ensembles, we only get 1+1 abilities, they won’t be balanced, guaranteed.
I will quote a rather funny written post from the US forums
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/so-blizzard-are-not-pulling-the-ripcord/639056/225?u=ptfogamer-2146
Agreed, yes, that’s also my feeling. They will basically make you play differently, and their efficiency will vary greatly depending on the type of content.
Which is still way better than bfa.
Or becouse you are a social weirdo that refuses to do any group activitiy in the game.
Easy to talk when the only thing you do is solo play 
Oh no big bad raider man made me change 1 talent for 1 run, oh the humanity how will i continue to live my life.
As for the other part of your statement, will manage with non swapable covenants- most likely, will it be fun - no. Yes for someone like you it might be annoying if you get asked to swap around something either deal with it or create your own group, for someone that cares about endgame and likes to customize their characters toolkid this is a swap in the face, dont even gem me started on the fact that if you pick by aestetic you will most likely be dumpstered performance compared to a person of the same class and spec that chose “the right one”. There is nothing obssesive or silly about caring about your characters power proggresion (inb4 i care about my character proggresion). In all honesty your playstyle depresses me and thats ok for you, but for like ~60% thats not the solution, people are not satisfied with just normal dungeons, LFR and WQ they want a challange and to have the right tools for said chalange.
Also 1 single ability is a huge deal, try playing for example without barbed shot and see how that turns out.
Decimation bolt says Hi.
I don’t refuse to do ‘any group activity in the game’. I don’t only play solo. I mostly play solo.
Where do you come up with such nonsense? Mr. hides behind some stupid low lvl Classic toon. 
Oh yea I forgot, the litle you do iit you complain on forums “hey n’zoth is to hard. I don’t want to play with others to see the story, give me storymode, mine progress in hindered behind other people performance”
Always showed mine char, and the only reason i did this character was to parrot another user (spellbatching, tricatakanaka, showofskill) and it worked becouse he is no longer posting here 
It’s quite clear from the ‘discussion’ Ion and Preach had that Blizz have a different philosophy to some of the playerbase.
Preach firmly believes that top dps should be about who pressed their buttons the best. Ion feels there should be more variation in there so they’ve introduced all these elements to create differences.
I am not sure on what Ion means - that if you and I have the same spec, the same gear and press the same buttons (so, same skill levels), the results should be different?? For what - for fun?
LOL
Yeah, I am with Preach.
And where in that horrible mess of english is me saying that ‘I don’t do any group activity in the game’ or that I ‘only play solo’? That’s right; nowhere. Stop making stupid assumptions (and stop the personal attacks, because you’ll lose that war).
From waht I can now tell, the main issue with covenants is that they are characters specific and not spec specific. I basically can no longer play assa in 3s/raid, sub in 2s and outlaw in m+ because my soulbinds will either be crap for all of them or crap for all but one of them.
Brilliant design
As for the rest of what Ion posted -it basically means “Raiders should only have to raid, everyone else has to do “everything” to gear”.
When I see raiders with 1/3 raid gear, 1/3 pvp gear and 1/3 m+ gear then I’ll know he isn’t talking bollocks. Considering every top pvper has 95% raid/m+ gear, and no raider has more than maybe 1 or two pvp pieces then its clearly not true that you have to do everything to be powerful.
sure…sure…sure… kappa keepo torterlkapo
Granted, but it’s still a concern if the conduits you need for PVP are only available from high lvl PvE.
Dunno how we ended up taking about that tho, fairly sure it wasn’t my initial intention u_U
I’m sorry but I have to take issue with this comment.
I am very much a solo player. My reasons for solo play are many but some are due to social and medical issues I have which do not make me, or anyone else with such issues, ‘weirdos’.
Please keep such ridiculous comments to yourself.